Sunday, March 6, 2011

[Comic title: Server Attention Span; not reproducing the alt text because it's long and I'm lazy]

Randall is a man of simple desires. He wants to touch the hem of the Cheetos-stained garment of a genuine programmer. He wants to spend all day reading Wikipedia and Reddit. He wants someone to tell him that he is beautiful. He wants to slurp the delicious fluid secreted by Megan's delicate pink milk buttons all the live-long day. As simple desires, Randall expects that the universe will have no difficulty accommodating him.

But, as he is too often reminded, such as when Megan inexplicably starts running as he approaches with a cry of "MILK" on his lips, sometimes a man is desired even these desires so fundamental to his being that one might even call them "needs." And it is brought home to him too often for even his damaged mind to ignore: Megan, the object of his infinite desire, is too often the agent of his rejection as well. She denies him what he wants! She denies him what he needs! There is only one way to describe her treachery.

She is like a poorly designed server that misinterprets his requests and sends him to the wrong webpage!

Having finally built up the courage (or milk-lust) to shout these words at her (through the internet, of course--Randy no longer leaves his warren, not even on a milk quest), Randy entered a swoon, and on coming to, the clock flashed at him ominously. Only an hour left before he had to post a new comic!

But all he could think about was the amazing zinger he had hurled at Megan just now. That was pretty clever, wasn't it? He should write about how annoying it is when stupid Megan doesn't understand his milk requests and instead sends him to the main page of his despair. That would show her!

This took him about ten seconds. The rest of the hour was spent painstakingly drawing wiggly geometric shapes that were meant to be computers and smartphones.

Had a rendez-vous with Janet quite near the Isle of Thanet. She looked more like a gannet, she wasn't half a prannet. Her mother tried to ban it-- her father helped me plan it! And when I captured Janet, she bruised her pomegranate.

I'm developing a new system for reading Rob's reviews. There are three things I'm looking for:

#1 Megan references in comics not featuring women#2 Pure speculation about Randall's behaviour#3 References to how sycophanctic the cuddlefish are

If there are 2 of these 3 in a review, then Rob is phoning it in. And he's phoned in just about every article on this site for a few weeks, hitting point #2 pretty consistently.

Really, it feels like this blog is just retreading the same ground over and over again. Wasn't there a time when Rob wrote about the content of the comics, instead of what basically amounts to fanfiction? Come on Rob, these days you're worse than Randy.

I really feel that the former high class criticism om this site is a thing of the past. This strip was actually quite funny, and doing the megan routine with it just feels far-fetched and tired. Shape up!

You're a loser, Rob; I want more analysis in these reviews! I'm getting bored of the over-done Megan routine. This site needs a new running gag. Rob, you're phoning it in. Why don't you even when that over this is so away?

actually, the review was written for the comic. the theme of "you can't always get what you want" is not generic--it wouldn't work well for most of the past several comics, for instance. and there are other references to the comic in the main text.

I'm saying this not because I'm opposed to writing generic reviews--T_A's review of the last comic was, in fact, written mostly before the comic itself came out, and it was pretty well-received--or because the review actually has anything to do with the comic, but because there's a good deal of "subtlety" (and I use the term loosely) that you're missing here.

If you would just explain why you think each strip sucks, based on the strip itself, instead of launching into your really unfunny, now uninspired, Randy-Megan spiels, this blog would be so much better.

You've become what you dislike about Randy. A repetitive unimaginative drone.

when rob started doing this stupid storytelling garbage I thought it was unfunny but I assumed it would only be for one or two comics

now every single post is this shit

the megan fantasies are just as creepy if not more than the actual shit that they're meant to make fun of. it offers no sort of actual criticism, which would be okay if the insulting caricature it presented was at least amusing

the only people who like this shit are the people who've been reading and commenting on this blog so long that it's actually become part of their identity, that they belong to some kind of xkcdsucks "community" on the internet

(I suppose I should give some sort of a loyalty pledge so you dont think I'm some cloaca-hurt sperger xkcd fan - I hate XKCD, its poorly drawn, nerdbaiting, and frequently creepy. It's only as popular at is because people who are borderline autistic love to tug their dongs to the notion that recognizing references to pop-sci and sci-fi signifies belonging to a special club of highly intelligent people.)

Dearest BootyYou are an unlettered and possibly innumerate dandy.If English is not your mother tongue, I would normally apologise but, in your case, I will make an exception.

anonymous at 10:29 said:

'....cloaca-hurt sperger...."

A truly inspired derogation! I salute you.

@ dogbreathcanada

Why do you feel that this site has an obligation to entertain you? Is it because you come from Canada where all you frozen socialist cunts live in a land of entitlement? Where the Internet, and the world, exists to provide you with what ever you fancy?Dogcockcanada more like

As an Asian, I can attest to our ability to use articulatory phonetics to pronounce the palatal lateral approximant - "L" sound - found in the word "Delp". We're fucked with 'Derp' though on account of our cunting rhotacism.

Actually one of my friends raised a good point: if you're using a high-end Android-type phone (and let's not kid ourselves, that's what Randall has) it's not that hard to find a browser that makes the server think you're on a desktop. So while this might be a legitimate problem shouldn't Randall's position be to say people who complain about it are idiots for not being as tech-savvy as him?

The new comic, to save you from having to venture through the wastelands of the forum, is set off by AdBlocker. Now, a normal person might wonder why someone whose only source of income is doing a shitty, shitty webcomic would make it harder for people to view his pathetic attempts at drawing a smartphone. Not the forumites though. No. They think like this:

"It set off mine as well. I assume that it was done on purpose, but if it wasn't then it's one incredible coincidence. Or is that irony?" - One of Randall's Sock Puppets.

Of course. Why wouldn't it be? Randall, in his infinite sense of irony, makes a webcomic that one can infer from the title, is about Advertising, and he gets it blocked as an advertisement. Oh this is just so funny that I haven't even seen the webcomic yet and already I am rolling on the floor in laughter while masturbating to the thought of Randall sucking milk from a stick figure's tits. But wait, after finally figuring out the amusing source of my inability to load the page and turning off my AdBlocker, at last I get to see the comic. The fruits of my labor are rewarded with a graph comic. Truly these are happy days.

At first, when I saw no comic, but the title "Advertising" I thought Randy had hidden some advertising scheme in the source and quickly checked it, only to be let down. :(Now I have to settle with a shitty graph comic.

The third panel isn't even always true unless you can't budget beyond tomorrow. If it's something like toilet paper that you're always going to need more of, then spending more in a single purchase in order to buy in bulk equates to a larger long-term saving over not getting the bulk discount by only making the purchases in smaller quantities in each instance (unless there's a prish crash in the meantime, but consumer good prices have a tendency to trend up over time anyway). It's not that complicated, but I guess he makes such a roaring trade in t-shirt sales that he doesn't have to think very carefully about budgeting.

yes, none of his complaints are actually very sound. panel 1 is complaining about a thing that doesn't ever happen. panel 2 is a false assertion that nobody will ever pay money to advertise a free service--or at least, it assumes that the only expected value possible is monetary. people will pay money to advertise things which are free only if they expect to derive some value out of the advertising, but that value need not be financial.

I guess randy finds this annoying for some reason? maybe he feels that it's dishonest for someone to be like 'free benefit concert tonight!' and then ask for donations or try to sell merchandise at that free concert.

"Prish crash" has to be the most bizarre typo (technically more of a brain spasm) I've ever made.

I have seen bargain tables labelled as "up to $X and over" in an effort to entice customers in that direction, but never as a percentage discount. It wouldn't even make sense as a percentage discount, as in such cases you would want to advertise with the biggest number you can. Bigger discounts look better for some reason!

"yes, none of his complaints are actually very sound. panel 1 is complaining about a thing that doesn't ever happen. panel 2 is a false assertion that nobody will ever pay money to advertise a free service--or at least, it assumes that the only expected value possible is monetary. people will pay money to advertise things which are free only if they expect to derive some value out of the advertising, but that value need not be financial."

You see, that is an amusing critique of Randall's last comic. Though when it comes to time to actually blog the critique, you'll launch into some sort of Megan tirade.

Why is A-LTF back? The comments threads have been stuffed with her/him pretending to be a girl being annoying and casually racist, all the while pointing out conspiciously that they're an asian female.

Isn't Randy a huge lover of FOSS? I'm pretty sure Firefox have paid to advertise their browser and I've never given them a cent for it. That alt-text... I can't really even put into words how annoyingly stupid it is

If you integrate the amount you spend over all possible amounts you could save, you find that the average amount you spend is equal to half the total amount you could save. What does this mean? Money, Math, Science, Graphs! Its XKCD!

hint: this blog is not instituting an ad hominem fallacy anywhere. Jesus lord protector of all that is good and holy, save me from stupid people who don't understand what an ad hominem is (hint: this sentence iss not an ad hominem either, you stupid cuntfaggot)

No shit sherlock? Rob's reviews are not saying "Randall is a man-baby obsessed with lactation, therefore his comic sucks". Rob's reviews are saying "Randall is a man-baby obsessed with lactation". Commentors who actually critique randall's comic do not say "this comic sucks because randall is a man-baby obsessed with lactation", they say things like "this comic sucks because Randall's art does a terrible job of providing context" (as an example).

TL;DR, you just provided a link that promptly fisted you in the asshole with a table lamp. Nicely done.

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

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